Analysis of the Therapeutic Effects of Seretide® (Salmeterol/Fluticasone) Alone and In Combination of Montelukast Sodium in Asthmatic Children

Asthma is a chronic respiratory disease which is characterized by chronic airway inflammation, bronchial hyper-responsiveness, and reversible airflow obstruction. This study was designed to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of Seretide combined with montelukast sodium against cough variant asthma (CVA) in children. The randomized controlled trial (RCT) of Seretide combined with montelukast sodium treating childhood CVA were searched from the databases of CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, PubMed and web of science. Data were collected from databases until March 20, 2022 and went through quality evaluation. Meta-analysis was performed on the Revman 5.3 software. A total of 12 studies including 956 patients were analyzed in this study. Meta-analysis showed that montelukast plus Seretide in pediatric patients with CVA was significantly more effective than Seretide monotherapy in terms of overall response rate (RR = 1.23, 95% CI [1.17, 1.30], p < 0.00001). Montelukast plus Seretide was also significantly more effective than the monotherapy group in terms of the improvement in the forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), the percentage of forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1/FVC%), and the peak expiratory flow rate (PEF) (p < 0.01). The combination group had significantly lower recurrence rate than the monotherapy group (RR = 0.22, 95% CI [0.09, 0.52], p = 0.0005). Based on the available clinical data, Seretide combined with montelukast therapy in pediatric patients with CVA improves the overall response rate and pulmonary function, and reduce the recurrence rate.